have people on county assistance through the course of a year, we may serve three times that number so wall it 15,000 people coming through our doors. >> they come and go? >> right. if you look at a 12-month span the average number of months on cap is seven or seven and a half months. that's the average. of course you have at either end of that you have people who have been consistently on. we even tried to insentavise spokes away from workfare with a higher grant. we have grant differration. you can do something else and get a higher grant and we had people chose work fare. >> there are a lot of people who say i want something more. i'm able to work 30 hours a week

and i want to do that. i share your concern and i kind of see the angle you are going at and look, they're doing six hours a work and they're not getting anything out of it so job training is not preparing them for the next step. but for some, that's all we can do and they appreciate the structure and they get their cash assistance and benefits in exchange. >> do you think these individuals that do this workfare and it seems to work for them because it's enough for them to live on in their living conditions with some other assistance? don't you think a part-time job, a steady part-time job would have better outcomes for these folks? >> absolutely. why is why we offer that to them. you have the option. you can go into jobs now and go to a part-time job. you can go to job training and

you can volunteer at a non-profit. giving the client a choice in every step. reaffirming that choice when they come in for benefits. nevertheless, you still have a couple hundred choosing workfare. >> and a question, are you proposing increase or decrease in the number of g.e. positions? >> we are flat. >> ok. are you proposing an increase or decrease in the number of civil service positions? >> flat as well. are there positions that would be transitioning from permanent to temporary or being contracted out? >> not contracted out. we have a whole series of substitutions. it's really too early in the process to know how we're adjusting that. we often have from year to year you have different departmental needs and you may need to substitute positions so we do that constantly and it's part of the budget submission in june.

>> thank you, very much. i appreciate it. now i think we will hear from sherine. from the department of aging adult services. >> good afternoon supervisors, sherine, director of the department of ageing and adult services. i'm just going to go over some caseloads first. so, just want to start with in-home supportive services which sour biggest program at d.o.s. ih. we serve about 25,000 clients or we served about 25,000 clients last year alone unduplicated and we had about 22,400 independent providers serving that clientel. on average, clients get 98 hours a month, which on the private market if they had to pay for that it would be almost $3,000 a month. it's a really great benefit for

those people who need it. i wanted to talk about integrated intake in referral. in 2016, with the support of mayor lee, we were able to open up our dos benefits and resource hub at the corner of goff and otus and we wanted to help streamline the intake process for people who need our services and make it easier for them to find us. we constantly are up against people not knowing where to find senior services or services with people with disabilities and we wanted it to be our hub for those services. what we have are people can access home delivered meals, they can come in and sign up for those and they can call in and do it online. they can also make reports of abuse to adult protective services and they can get support of services and also we co located our county veteran service office there. so, last year we had about close

to 15,000 intakes for those programs. we received close to 28,000 calls. we were able to work with about 2800 veterans and file 5700 claims for veterans, which result inside about $4 million in retroactive benefits for those veterans. in office on the aging, we have now served over 34,000 people in the last fiscal year and that is an increase of more than 10,000 individuals annually since five years ago so we've really increased in those services and those services are things that really help people engage in communities such as senior centers, meals and those things. i know, you are all very familiar with those. just wanted to highlight some of the things we're doing in our various programs.

thank you to mayor lee, he put that into the budget last year and so we were able to get it up and running last year and it has a clinical focus for clients who can't provide for their own basic needs due to substance abuse. the unit was launched in may of 2017 and we've since served 285 clients in that program. in that unit. about 50% of the clients were referred because they were at high-risk of loosing their housing. and to date, almost 80% of the clients whose cases have been closed were found to be safe, stable or thriving at time of closure as a result of their a.p.s. intervention. we're really excited about the results of that unit. you've heard a lot about conservatorship today and if you asked questions. we continue to work in partnership with the department of public-health, community

behavioral health services within d.p.h. and the homeless department to assist people who are experiencing acute mental illness or grave disability because of that. we're continuing to expand the community independence participation program that provides for community-based conservative o.p.p. ship and we work actively to keep people who need conservatorship at the settings. you asked about placement. half the people in our program end up being out of county but we're really working on this community based program that helps people stay here if they agree to conservatorship and you know, we're really able to serve them better in support of housing or places like that within the city. so far we've assisted over 50 people in that program. the number may be lower but the threshold is very high for someone who can towell actuallyn

that so we're excited about that number. we're participating, the inner agency high priority case review meetings and we're very excited to be involved in those meeting. it's clear you are asking questions about someone who has been 5150 multiple times. the key is getting the resources in place at the right time. right when that person needs resources we need to have the placement and we have been given the jurisdiction, the authority to serve and all of that has to happen and it's really great we're doing this inner agency collaboration and looking at each individual needs. also just the change in representation from the district attorney to the city attorney that supervisor sheehy, you referenced that president reid was in the legislation related

to that. we're working closely with both teams to make sure that the transition happens as smoothly as possible. and then in home support of services, home bridge is our provider that does what we call contract mode so they work with people who really can't manage their own worker. they provide the workers, they train the workers, et cetera. so it's kind of our highly vulnerable i.h.h.s. population they're working with. one of the issues they've been facing is just this very, very high turnover. of course the economy has been good and people can find jobs elsewhere and working with this population is tough. it takes great workers and dedication and commitment and passion and so, we wanted to work with them. they were having a 60% or 70% turnover in their home care staff and so, we helped them to

implement a tiered wage and essentially, we're study the tiered wage and see if it helps that workers are getting paid more. they start off-the-record with a $2 increase and then some of them will be able, with extra training, will get access higher amount so up to $3 over the minimum page. and then moving on to our community based services, i know everybody knows about the dignity fund and we just finished the dignity community needs assessment part of the dignity fund legislation. we will be reporting part of the legislation says that there needs to be a joint hearing of the aging and adult services commission and the oversight and advisory council of the dignity fund so we'll hold that on apri6 here in city hall. and there are some highlights

from the report that i just wanted to point out to you. and one is that toss is serving 1-4 of the community based programs. this doesn't include inhome support of services, it's really that 34,000 people we mentioned and the equity analysis is factors are accessing services at higher rates. in particular, we're really pleased to see that toss is serving half of the low income seniors and this ind indicates we're doing effective strategic targeting of populations that we know really need our services. and then we've identified research and analysis such as breaking out the communities in color to see how we're really doing within and across those groups. and also, the lgbt population.

we just started really collecting the sexual identity and sexual orientation identity. we don't have good data how we're serving that population. we expect to have better data around that next year. when the aging and adult services commission has approved the community needs assessment, i'll be bringing it to a committee of the boards and it will go to the full board for their approval, before june. and then lastly, i just wanted to mention the support at home care pilot and that was really interesting that was championed by erik mar, former supervisor, before supervisor fewer. what we're doing is focusing on a middle-income population that can't afford home care outright but may be able to pay for a

little bit of that home care. these people don't qualify for in home support of services or community living fund but we want to see if they can really benefit and stay at home more easily if they had up to 18 hours of home care per week. and so, we're really still recruiting people. we want to find more people with disabilities who are under 60 to participate in this study, it's really a study. we're working with the institute on aging who is administering the program for us and they've engage ucsf to do a thorough evaluation and looking at utilization, looking at quality of life indicators, et cetera. so we're going to be very excited to find out the results of that are and see if it's making a difference for people. when we talk about making a difference, is it keeping them out of the hospital. is it keeping them at home, et cetera. and then lastly, we're enhancing outcomes. focusing on performance

objectives in our community contracts. and just trying to do this while not over taxing our community providers. of course we always want to ask for more information but we hear from them that we are trying to do things without a lot of margin so we want to make sure we're not asking too much, at the same time we want to move to a much stronger focus on community impact on client impact, et cetera. i want to give one example. we're piloting evidence-based measures to track loneliness and nutrition risk and implementing follow-up procedures to ensure clients have access to appropriate further resources. i think that's the end of my report. unless there are questions i'm going to turn it over to september gerard. >> any questions? >> yes, i had a couple. one does your eviction prevention unit work with the sheriff? i did have a conversation with

her where she mentioned that for seniors because she has to do it and she comes across folks that are not aware of what is happening to them. >> we do work closely with the sheriff and we can make sure the deputy sheriffs understand how a.p.s. works and we work closely with that. >> my understand question was the dignity fund. so long time survivors of h.i.v., the interface isn't working well? >> we're very interested in working with long-time survivors of h.i.v. the request that came to us didn't quite fit the dignity health funds. i'm continuing to work with the

h.i.v. and aging task force and find ways that we can help we as a coming up next through dignity fund or other ways help support them and it didn't quite meet the criteria what we're doing and also i think there was another issue with the panel and volumes we're asking and we're interested in working with them. >> it's a challenge for that community to manage this system and i know that there's a lot of confusion on where people should be going for this support and they don't fit in the dignity fund so many of their request have health components but from the patient or client standpoint, they're not really separable. you have people living with h.i.v. 20, 30, 40, well not 40, well actually, some are 40.

so you have people who are aging with h.i.v., you know, 60% of the people with h.i.v. are over 50 and that will be 70% soon and we're not finding a place for that community within the city funding structures and they don't seem to fit here and don't seem to fit there. given what people have survived, and given the support, the enormous amount of support that that community drummed up for passing the dignity fund, it's a challenge trying to figure out what advise i can give to that community to try to participate and have some sort of relationship -- you know, just to have something happening for them as they age. >> i mean, what i would suggest supervisor, is that if maybe through the h.i.v. and aging task force, if they set up a meeting with me and we can just

literally talk about what the challenges are, maybe we can help them -- i could help them figure out what the right path is. and i think so that didn't happen. so we had some asks that came in and they didn't seem quite related to dos but if they were able to just have a conversation about how they might go about it, maybe that would be the best way to do it. i'm happy to have a conversation with them about that. >> it's hard if it ends up being something i have to deal with in the add-back process. you know, it's -- >> i can talk to them. >> this community has been through a lot. and the trauma that they've experienced and the loss that they've experienced. the effects of aging and h.i.v. presents unique burdens to this community and the ability to self-organize and really direct is a challenge. at the same time, to maintain some sense of community when so

much of, you know, so many people have lost so many people. the social isolation is a huge issue. and so it just feels like rather than help it's like you guys pull it together and figure it out. they've been pulling it together and figuring it out for 30 years. >> they have, but i think we have to work within the constraints of our funding and so i think if they came and talked to me about it we can figure something out. i really do. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. i just have. you said the report is going to be coming out on april 4th or the results? >> yeah. the report is public and i believe that we have already sent it to each of you through your aids. if you haven't received it i'll make sure it went down. i thought it had. it's public. >> just very quickly in a couple

sentences, what do you see as some of the gaps or trends that we will have to address in our budget cycle probably in the years to come? i know that there have been estimates that the senior population is one of the largest growing populations in san francisco. i know in my district it is. and the need is going to be great and that we're seeing, we just had a report on home care. we've had a report on skilled nursing beds, we've had a report on a lot of these homes that take care of seniors and they're closing because of a high cost of san francisco and so can you give us a snapshot of where do you think this is trending and what some of the gaps are. [ please stand by stand by for captioner switch ]

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lot of the jobs are going to be, and that's where the need is going to be. thank you. >> supervisor fewer: thank

you. and now, i believe we have last but not least, the fabulou is the office of early care and education. >> good afternoon, supervisors. again, i'm september jarrett. our city is home to about 48,000 children under the age of five, and we believe thatbyy getting our youngest residents off to the strongest start, we can avoid some of the challenges that they face later. with that start, they'll be productive citizens. with that, i would say just a few things. a key point of the critical piece of early years is access to high quality care and early

childhood education. in frisk frissan francisco, vil of our children are growing up in households where parents are working, and half of our household struggle providing hey quali high quality learning that they prefer. san francisco's stepped up to meet the challenges. our work next year, like we and my colleagues shared, we're lucky enough to really steward and san francisco's a leader nationally in drawing down state and federal funds to close the early learning gap for families, and we are also a leader in investing local dollars because in a national context, the state's as far behind other successful industrialized countries that really invest in families when they're young, in that critical standardup period where lifetime earnings of parents

are low because they're early in their career, typically, and the cost of really giving the kids that education and support that they need is high. so many other countries, the u.s. has yet to catch up, really invest publicly in that critical window, and in san francisco we're proud to make a difference and demonstrate some good practices. some of our priority, laies, l year, we created an enhanced san francisco tradition of closing the gap for children and families and launched a new program called early learning scholarship, continuing to leverage state and federal dollars, and trying to meet families' needs with a sliding scale, early care and education program that draws down and meets our lowest income family needs but works up the income ladder to more working families that might not be eligible for state and federal assistance

but can't yet afford the high cost of quality in san francisco. with this reshaping, we're now reaching 7500 young children and their families under the age of five, and we're serving about 680 more kids than we served year to year with the same dollars and we're drawing down -- we're closing the gap and drawing down more state and federal dollars, about 18% more than we were with this new approach. looking ahead to next year, early care and education, we do want to try and offer the many small businesses and nonprofit child care centers that do the hard work of educating and caring for our children a cost of doing business increase to meet their increases expenses. we're also really working hard to try and get better information out to families and programs. we don't right now -- finding

early care and education is one of the most difficult choices a parent or a caregiver can make, and finding quality timely relevant information about your program options, what your share of cost is, and whether or not the city's financial assistance can help you and your household is so really hard to navigate. so we're actually through the mayor's start-up and residence process, we accelerated building a new digital portal, one-stop shop in three threshold languages so parents, on their schedules, nights and weekends, not just days when we're working, can really be empowered to know their range of options and the financial assistance we offer? i hope to be sharing with you -- we'll actually have beta testing of parent programs and professionals and we'll be happy to share that with you and engage your districts and networ networks in testing that new information portal. like director mcspadden shared, we have a workforce challenge

in san francisco. education and early childhood care is among some of the most physically demanding work and among some of the lowest paid in the city, and we have a lot more to do in recruit, retention and compensation work? we're looking to expand the number of spaces in early education programs to prove sprisk's a leader in planning policy that really support and promote the employment of family home child care centers, and lastly we have an opportunity because the city's children are everybody's responsibility to further some public and private partnerships to close the gap for families, and with that, i'll take any questions. >> supervisor fewer: so thank you, miss jarrett. actually, i just have one of the same questions that i asked for sherreen, which is what are we seeing about urgent needs

and gaps? >> well, there -- we -- we're fortunate enough to have a san francisco citywide plan for early childhood education, which was endorsed by the nature yo and board of supervisors in 2016, and we setup four prior areas and northstars that we're moving our system towards. first, we share the vision that every san francisco child will have access to an affordable high quality learning setting. within that, we have several thousand low income subsidy eligible families who've asked for child care financial assistance for whom were not receiving financial assistance from the state or federal government, so one unmet need is really clearing the list essentially of families that have the need and are working. the second is because of the social policy framework, we're having this middle income or

missing middle where there's working parents working hard that quite -- can't quite afford the full cost of quality, so there's a missing middle that we have an aspiration in this early learning scholarship approach if this were available where parents are paying a portion of cost but getting if financial assistance. there's kind of a hard cliff right now. you hit that wall, you meet that dollar an hour base, and you could lose your child care assistance. i would be remiss to say our third priority is really our workforce. folks work hard -- there's nothing harder, i think, than managing a classroom of young children, at least for me. excuse me. but we have some recruitment and compensation challenges. one example, the cost of living in san francisco is high, as we all know, for -- for all of our

san franciscans and families in particular. our workforce right now in a community based setting or a family child care home may be ashi as earning on average, even with a b.a. or b.a. work, less than 40,000 a year. that's far below an average two bedroom rent right now plus important. so while it's noble work and important work, the pay is below what the professionals need to thrive. as one of our family child care advisors reminded me, she said i can't pick up my family child care business and commute in from oakland or alameda or somewhere more affordable because child care homes they're home is being licensed and operated to care for other san francisco children. so those are the three pressing gaps. we do have additional challenge, which i think is important to lift up?

because of fragmentation in different program and see some challenges in state and federal policy, our early care and education is hard for busy working parents of diverse cultural backgrounds to navigate. and so a fourth priority is to lift up and make better, more clear information available and also make our programs easier to understand, access and engage with and retain. thank you. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much. a lot of similarities between daas, also. thanks. so let's open this up for public comment. are there any members of the public that would like to speak on these items. seeing none, public comment is closed. colleagues, any questions, comments for our presenters today? seeing none, thank you very much. can i have a motion, please, to file this item? [ inaudible ] >> supervisor fewer: oh, supervisor. are you making the motion? that's great. okay. so we will file this item. thank you very much.

and madam clerk, are there any other items before us today? >> clerk: no, madam chair, there are no other items on this agenda. >> supervisor fewer: thank you very much. the meeting is adjourned. >> ok, i'm going to hop around like this, it is cold in here. that's dirt. this is a ground breaking.

there is a big banner and if you've been involved in the project, you know that the banner has been up for a long time. it says the future of the neighborhood starts here. at long, long, long, long, long last, the future of the neighborhood starts here. applause line. [applause] 116 years after this building opened, 116 years. we are on the precipice of just an amazing transformation of this space. commissioner, can you -- this is just recent history back in the day when, i don't know what we were doing here, but trying to keep the thing still standing. so that in i think it was 2002

or 2003, mayor brown and then recreation and park general manager, elizabeth goldstein and i'm not who was running mta at the time -- dan? michael burns. so we were able to transform -- well, this property was given to the recreation and park department and, boy, were we happy to get it, sort of. [laughter]. it's what i would call a fixer upper. and it has taken the last 16 or 17 years of sweat and desire and push and pull and push and pull. and leadership, which you're going to hear from today. and community leadership to get to where we are today. this really genuinely is the

little project that could. and so here we are, it's just a joyous moment. mark buell, who is not here today. here's our mayor, but i meant to go over here to the commissioner. mark buell is president of the rec and park commission, and says it takes a village. this takes an entire city to pull this project off. and there are so many people to acknowledge and thank. i'm going to that and then turn the microphone over to our mayor. there are a lot of people who have had some skin in the game here. let me read off the beginning of a list. obviously, let's start with the late mayor ed lee. who was here for -- [applause] our current mayor mark farrell who has been a park champion from the get go and helped make

stuff happen. representing assemblyman phil ting. he delivered a total of $6.5 million of state funding, including $3.5 million for this project. our recreation and park vice president allan lowe, who has given this project all kinds of leadership at city hall. we have representatives from the performing arts workshop here today. the community arts stabilization trust. you're going to hear from them. todd. joachim and amy, thank you, thank you, thank you. equity community builders who did the financing and historic preservation financing. officially the most complicated project in recreation and park department history. it makes the soccer fields seem

like a cake walk. the san francisco community investment fund, sf, todd wearing two hats there, for the new market credit financing. darling design. former district 11 supervisor john ablows. let's give him a round of applause. your district 11 supervisor, safai. the head of the arts commission, tom dekaty. department of public works, rob bot construction. i don't know if she's here, but our city attorney, she earned whatever she billed to this project, which was a lot, adira

tailor. and two special people that i want to take an extra second to thank. there is a lot of other names i'm going to fill in over time. i want to thank two members of my own team. reama. and then nicole. come here, step up. this woman right here. [applause] she started this project -- where is dan weaver -- working for friends of the geneva car barn. i stole her which made them -- you guys very upset. but you know, sometimes you can bang on the door from the outside and it takes somebody with nicole's talent to make it happen from the inside. this project does not happen without nicole abele. more thank yous to come, but let

me turn over the microphone. the guy behind me has been all over the city, parks, parks, parks, there is other stuff to do, but all he cares about is parks, parks, parks, parks. mayor mark farrell. >> i think phil took care of the thanks, but let's give a round for phil ginsburg, our general manager. thank you, phil. and to the entire rec and park staff, thank you for all the work you've done on the project. to assembly member phil ting, i know we're here in large part because of his efforts and want to thank supervisor safai. this was something he talked about when he was running for office. we talked about it in the board of supervisors. such an amazing advocate for the neighborhood.

it was about 5-6 years ago that as a district 2 supervisor, weaver came to our office enough that we came here and went on a tour of this place a number of years ago. and so this has been an issue and project that because of the advocacy of so many of you has been in the forefront of peoples' minds. who here is a neighbor? give yourself a round of applause. this is grassroots, built from the neighborhood, with a lot of support. but to cass and all the people making this work. i want to say thank you for everything you've done to get us to where we are. i'm curious about what is buried under the ground, looks suspicious to me. but this is phase one. advocacy does not stop in terms of the entire project, but thank you all for the work you've done, the leadership behind me. but really for the neighbors.

and you know, continue to make sure that everybody knew this was a priority for you and what this will do for the neighborhood for years and generations to come is incredibly exciting. proud to be here today. thank you, everyone. [applause] >> so before i bring up the next speaker, i also want to give a big shoutout to beth ruebenstein who has supported this project wearing a variety of hats. thank you, beth. so, this project has benefitted from the great leadership of two district 11 supervisors, but i am very, very proud to bring up the current district 11 supervisor, whom frankly we could not have asked for more from. he's helped power up our balboa park pool, scored funding for a dog play area, he just joined us last week at the opening of the geneva community garden down the

street. which is amazing. he participated in the planning and design conversation to make the playground better. he was there to celebrate the bike project. this guy really fights for district 11 communities and parks and green space. ladies and gentlemen, supervisor safai. >> all right. i'm going to take a minute to give a little bit of history. when i first was involved in this project, it went back to the geneva car barn, that's what we called it at the time, with marion harris, dan weaver, some of the folks and we met for hours and hours and hours. and every time we'd have an opportunity -- and steve courier -- and every time we had an opportunity, and sharon, i

know i'm going to forget someone, linda, linda lighthizer who won't height lighthizer back then. and she would say you don't want to get involved, you do want to get involved, you don't want to. but every opportunity dan weaver had, no matter who was in the mayor's office or the general manager was, he said i want to bring folks down to the car barn and we have to do a tour. and we have this amazing asset and resource in our community. it's one of only two historic buildings in our district. balboa high school and the car barn. because of the tenacity of that man and all the people i named and folks in the community, we're standing here now with phase onefully funded. let's give it up for phase one!

[applause] and then we had an angel investor from the state assembly who knows his assembly district very well. and as he said, he was the parks champion of 2017. and that was assemblyman phil ting who came in with $3 million. and our former supervisor who was able to go through the outside of the budget process and push really hard and got the attention of his colleagues on the board, and with the tenacity of beth ruebenstein and we got an add back for this. take the advocacy of dan weaver, assemblyman phil tinge and then the leadership of the wonderful parks and rec manager, phil ginsburg. and phil pulled it all together. i can tell you my first week in office, i was standing there and i met tom and he said the people that you need that is going help

bring this project to whole and bring it to fruition is cass. and i was like, what do you mean, what is cass? i've never heard of it? there you are tom. and we engaged them. phil is not exaggerating. the amount of time and effort and energy with the tax credit and the new market tax credit and the historic tax credit and all that to be said, the financing and the layers that go into this project are tremendous. so rheem, nicole, phil ginsburg. he took this on as a baby. one of his projects that he has a lot of children, but he was not going to let this go until we got it done. and the wonderful city attorney taylor and all of them got together and were able to bring this to fruition. now, cass is charged with helping lead the effort for phase two, so we're excited

about having them involved. excited to have moism, steve oliver and their entire team. this is not just a building. this is a place where we believe it will be the premiere performing arts facility in the entire city and county of san francisco. [applause] so performing arts workshop is going to work with all of the different people in the arts community. and i want to recognize a special guest, david, from the conservatory of music. he's standing in the back. they have committed to be an initial partner here working with the performing arts workshop. and that is also as a result of reverend brown's leadership. so david, give a wave back there. thank you for coming out today. [applause] conservatory of music is going to be a big part of this, along

with performing arts workshop. we're so happy that district 11 is no longer treated like the forgotten part of san francisco, but a rising tiger in the city. and thank you to our mayor for supporting us. [applause] >> a couple of other quick shout outs as i see people in the room. equity community builders, john clawson in the back, here's the genius of the tax credits. and then john is pointing at his colleague, kim nash. kim, john, thank you very much. supervisor safai used the word tenacious to describe dan.

i'm going to describe another, that is amy cohn who helped to make this project happen. i got to introduce rheem and nicole, but i see kara and koch who helped to run the capital program that is responsible for building these amazing parts. we talked about assemblyman ting who couldn't be here today, parks mvp of 2017, so accepting the award on behalf of assemblyman ting is his aid alex walker! >> thank you, phil. good morning, everyone. it's great seeing so many friends and neighbors here today. my name is alex water, here on behalf of phil ting. i want to say myself personally, i've been a neighbor of the project, at mission terrace, i've been a neighbor here 7 and a half years and it makes me so

proud to see this coming to fruition. i know we had a lot of people to thank, because so many people with the hands in our project. i want to recognize the surrounding community leaders. al harris here from the omi and thinking about all of the children and the people this is going to serve, i see joel from the outer mission merchants and residents association. i see mel from the excelsior district. and you know, we're also going to be seeing across the street, housing built by mission housing. so it's great to see a transit hub building here. as mentioned earlier, we were proud to get $3.5 million in the budget to help get the first

phase started. on his behalf i want to say thank you. one more shoutout, i see genesis is here, from david chiu's office. and a connection with david chiu's office, a shoutout to judson, who is the chief of staff, but used to work for sandoval and it goes all the way back. so it's so great to see years and years of work by dan weaver, so many people come to fruition. we were so proud to get a little bit of money to get things kick started, so happy to see the process. thank you for having me, thanks to phil, the commission, the supervisor and the mayor, great to be here today. can't wait to see the first phase when it opens up. thank you, all. >> thank you, alex, a couple more shoutouts from the design

here is what takes your breath away. from darling design, we have josh, able and nicole here. can you raise your hands? thank you, josh. and by the way, the design, much of it it was in-kind contribution to the project which makes it even more special. thank you, josh. and alex mentioned mission housing across the street. sam moss is here? sam is not here. never mind that. i was told sam was here. moving along, so i have lots and lots of bosses. last count 890,000, but within that, i have this boss and then i have seven bosses on the recreation and park commission. i also have 11 on the board of supervisors and lots of others. but the -- it is really a pleasure to work with the rec

and park commission. they are the people's voice and that's a really important thing in parks. but there is very much a shared mission of trying to steward what is the best park system in the united states of america. and it is a great joy to work with the vice president of the commission who blocks and cheers for parks like the best of them. my pleasure to bring up allan lowe. >> thanks, phil. just wanted to tell you this morning i was sitting on my kitchen room table trying to think of something inspirational, motivational about patience and waiting. and i just said screw it, let's just build it. speaking of patience and waiting, i really want to acknowledge dan weaver and the friends of the geneva car barn.

that was a long community advocacy. it's gone longer than my marriage and louder than my wife. glad to have this happen. i want to acknowledge all the civic leaders, in particular the late mayor ed lee, who really wanted to put this into execution. and the mayor's office and their staff. joachim, when i first joined the commission told me about the geneva car barn and i said, i don't know where that is. i want to thank the tax credit investors, the financing to make this possible. a big shutout to the department staff who pulled this together. our general manager who held our hand and explained to us what -- inside tax credit investor joke.

but thank you. rec and park, we have the saying let's get out and play. when this opens up, i think we're going to have to change that to go to the power house and create. thank you. [applause] >> all right. so, the city folks have done their thing. now we're going to transition to community past, present and future. so i'm first going to bring up the chief on the project, tenacious, but dan, it is truly an honor given the length of the journey to invite you to speak. you all know him, ladies and gentlemen, dan weaver. [applause]

>> thanks, everybody. i'm just the face of a board that has been from the beginning together with us and we've been working and moving and dealing with whatever happens. by order of a rival here, al harris. [applause] if i say your name, would you raise your hand if you're back there still? alex? over here? neil ballard. tom? over here. mel flores. sharon everhart.

i'd also like to acknowledge two of our former board members. one of whom has moved on, or both of whom who moved on. steve courier. and supervisor safai was on our board. and one more acknowledgment here before i say a few words about the history of the project. marry harris at the district 11 council was always ready. [applause] and also advocating for this project. even when i wasn't there, she was working on it. lots of times. thank you, mary. let me go back to the beginning how this all happened. one more person. christie. who took over when al adams left

the school and has been carrying on as well as he was carrying on in the beginning. they provide us with all kinds of meeting rooms and classrooms and offices over the years. that's a great contribution to on organization trying to put together a space. let me go back to -- actually this sign is historic. it was put together by muni. in the year after they stopped trying to demolish the buildings. in 1989 to be exact, this complex was red-tagged. muni pursued a 10-year process which resulted in an eir, saying

there are bricks that might fall from this brick structure. and therefore someone might get hurt, so the buildings have to be demolished. we persuaded them, or explained to them at historic preservation advisory committee that we could repair the bricks and the building wouldn't fall apart and it wouldn't hurt anybody. and we could use it for a community center. it took until january of 1999, when mayor brown issued an order to muni to stop their efforts. and work with us to fix the building. in 2001, this being san francisco, muni proposed and

carried out a neighborhood celebration for the 100th anniversary of the geneva car barn. so in 2002, the nonprofit friends of the geneva office building and power house was formed. in 2003, we partnered with rec park informally, because rec park didn't own the building then. we worked with the two agencies a little bit. and muni readily agreed to give it up for $1. so it was a bargain. [laughter] in 2004, we started working on the